Reagan To Play Good Neighbor

Visit With Mexican Leader Won`t Be All Smiles, However

February 14, 1988|By George de Lama, Chicago Tribune.

LOS ANGELES — President Reagan and Mexican President Miguel de la Madrid hope to play the public role of good neighbors Saturday even as they take on longstanding mutual complaints during their sixth annual and probably final meeting.

The two leaders plan to emphasize improved relations between their nations while agreeing to disagree on touchy matters ranging from Central America to U.S. immigration policy when they meet in the Mexican Pacific resort of Mazatlan, senior administration officials said.

But Reagan also plans to press his host about Mexico`s inability to control its burgeoning illegal drug trade and to express concern about what the White House sees as a dangerously increasing Soviet presence in Mexico, the officials said.

Fueling the administration`s fears over the Soviet role in Mexico is the recent news that Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev plans to visit Mexico sometime this year, though no date has been set, the officials said.

Moreover, the CIA and FBI are said to be deeply concerned about signs of increased Soviet intelligence activities along the U.S.-Mexican border. The Soviet Union maintains one of its largest diplomatic missions in Mexico City. ``We`re concerned at the level of Soviet presence because we have reason to believe the target is us,`` said one senior administration official who requested anonymity.

Despite these contentious issues, however, a public spirit of good will is expected to predominate when the two leaders meet with their traditional abrazo, or embrace, at the luxurious Camino Real Hotel in Mazatlan, an oceanside town popular with college-age Americans.

Even the site of the meeting is a symbol of the improvement in U.S.-Mexican ties.

Relations fell to a low point after the assassination of U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent Enrique Camarena Salazar in Guadalajara in 1985. Mazatlan, the largest city in Sinoloa state, is the acknowledged home turf of many Mexican drug bosses who have used the resort as a haven while making Sinoloa synonymous with violence, corruption and the drug trade.

By agreeing to stage his four-hour visit there, Reagan is tacitly endorsing the steps taken by de la Madrid`s government over the last two years to crack down on official tolerance of local drug lords, White House officials said.

Sinoloa-based traffickers have been charged with the kidnaping and murder of Camarena three years ago, easing a major rift between the two nations over the progress of the Mexican government`s investigation of the crime.

The state`s new governor, Francisco Labastida Ochoa, has been credited with firing 1,300 state security officers and arresting more than 100 others on corruption charges since taking office last year.

But though the White House approves of the progress in Sinoloa, Reagan plans to deliver the message that he wants Mexico to do more. U.S. Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese is expected to do the same in separate meetings with his Mexican counterpart, Sergio Garcia Ramirez.

``I would say that Mexico is making increasing efforts to fight drug trafficking, but those efforts are not adequate,`` said a senior

administration official.

The Justice and State Departments contend that Mexico is the largest source of marijuana and heroin smuggled into the U.S., as well as the transshipment point for about one-third of the cocaine that enters the country.

For its part, Mexico has long complained that Washington is insensitive to its difficulties in fighting powerful drug barons at a time when the nation`s economy is particularly hard-pressed.

Moreover, some Mexican officials resent the way officials in the United States, Mexico`s large and sometimes dominating northern neighbor, have portrayed the depth and magnitude of official corruption in their nation.

Still, with both leaders in their final year in office, aides on both sides have prepared an agenda for Saturday`s meeting that will largely let bygones by bygones and emphasize areas of progress.

On Central America, both leaders are expected to restate their contrasting views: Mexico opposes U.S. aid to the Nicaraguan contras, while the administration is sharply critical of Mexico`s political support for the Sandinista regime.

``We simply have a disagreement over the right way to proceed,`` the administration official said.

The two leaders plan to sign minor trade agreements on textiles and communications, and may agree on a separate civil aviation accord, officials said.

Economic issues are also on the agenda, including discussion of a new plan devised by U.S. banks and the Treasury Department to help Mexico reduce its mammoth $103 billion foreign debt by selling special bonds to be offered to foreign banks at a Feb. 19 auction.